Motorik Musik

Some music never, ever gets old. I fell in love with the music of Neu! after buying a copy of a budget sampler called German Rock Scene [Brain Metronome] which opened with a track called "Neuschnee". I know I bought that comp in '75 because of some of the other acts: Guru Guru, Embryo and Thirsty Moon, but it was Neu! that grabbed my attention. Although it took some doing, I managed to track down copies of their three lps and proceeded to wear the grooves out.

Neu! were a duo of Michael Rother on guitar, keyboards, etcetera and Klaus Dinger on drums, guitar, keyboards, whatever vocals were necessary and the obligatory etcetera. Previously they were members of Kraftwerk (as seen in an historic Beat Club clip) before heading off on their own to be a precursor to Punk, Industrial and any number of post-rock experimentalists.

Their self-titled debut [Brain Records 1004] set the template: the archetypal motorik beats of Dinger and the loping, ringing guitar chimes and buzzsaw drones from Rother that sound a little like an experimental version of The Stooges' Funhouse. Face it, Stereolab based their career on Hallogallo alone. My personal favourite is the ten minute "Negativland" where the variation in tempo is created by slowing down or speeding up of the backing track. Priceless.

When faced with recording Neu! 2 [Brain Records 1028], the story is that they were forced to improvise to bring the album up to length, and they did this by re-recording two tracks at (what sounds like) 16rpm, 78 rpm and on a defective cassette machine, complete with skips, surface noise and other audio artifacts. Here's a bit of trivia: A portion of "Super 16" appears on Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill soundtrack.

Their third effort, Neu! '75[Brain Records 1062] proved the most incredible feat of all, three near perfect albums in a row. This time around Dinger and Rother were joined by two additional drummers, Thomas Dinger and Hans Lampe. I'm not sure that it was due to their involvement, but '75 is probably the most rockist and in many ways their most approachable. Even then, they still find time to record a few atmospheric oddities like Leb'Wohl. It's no secret that Bowie heard the recording and that it helped shape his Berlin recordings. A single listen to Neu!'s "Hero" is all the proof you'll need.

A final note, over the years there have been a couple of posthumous releases: a cd called Neu! 4 and a live set. Neither are critical, the former being studio outtakes and the latter, a lo-fi cassette recording. Only obsessive completists need track these down.

Here is a fan-made video. It's basically a set of still images set to "Negativland".